sock animal rattle tutorial

I'm excited to be posting today as part of the babyhood bonanza going on over at luvinthemommyhood!  If you haven't stopped by the party yet, you'll find lots of fun and creative baby themed project tutorials from guest crafters all around blogland.

Today I'll show you how to make a sock bunny rattle ... my little twist on a classic craft.  You all know how I love sock animals!

It's soft ... it's squishy ... it has chomp-able ears and a nice, soft jingle.  It is sure to be your infant's favorite first toy.

 Materials:

• one sock per rattle
• polyfill stuffing
• embroidery thread and needle
• one jingle bell
• optional: sewing machine, thread, etc.  If you use a machine, a ball point needle is very helpful when working with knits (I also like to use my walking foot).

This project can be entirely sewn by hand, but I use a sewing machine for the larger pieces to speed the work along.

Also, I'll be showing you two versions of this project.  The first version is a straight handled rattle with a small animal head.  The second version is a loop handled rattle with a larger animal head.  Feel free to mix them up as you choose - the beauty of sock animals are how customizable they are!  You can also easily change the ear shape and facial embroidery to make a wide range of animals.  I'll only be showing you a bunny in this tutorial.

Straight-Handle Rattle (Version 1)

Step 1:  Cut your sock, following the photo below

Step 2:  make the handle

1. Fold piece A in half lengthwise, with right sides facing together.  Pin in place.  
2. Sew down the open side and bottom, curving the bottom edge.  Leave the original sock cuff open for stuffing.  I sewed a straight stitch on my sewing machine and also serged the edges (optional).  You can also zigzag stitch the edge, or double stitch for durability.  
3. Turn the handle right side out and stuff with polyfill.

 Step 3:  make the head

1. Turn piece B inside out and stitch the top closed in a curved edge.  Fold flat in the other direction and sew another curved seam overlapping the first perpendicularly (not pictured - sorry!).  Basically, it will make a small "x" on the top of the head and give it a nice curved shape.
2. Turn right side out and stuff the head.  Insert the jingle bell into the center of the head and cover with more stuffing.
3. Using a long piece of embroidery floss, start cinching the bottom of the head closed (hide the thread knot on the inside of the head).  I cinched the head by sewing stitches alternating on opposite sides of the head.  Continue stitching and cinching until the bottom of the head is all gathered in.
4. Tie a knot to close off the head, but do not cut your embroidery floss.  You will continue to use it in the next step (fewer knots to hide!).

Step 4: attach the head to the handle

Continuing to use the embroidery floss from step 3, attach the bottom (cinched) side of the head to the opening of the handle using a ladder stitch.  If you are not familiar with the ladder stitch, I would recommend watching this short how-to video.  It is a very simple stitch that is great for sock animals because it is strong and nearly invisible.

Step 5: make and attach ears

1. Cut piece C in half horizontally so you have two equal pieces.  Do exactly as you did with piece A for the handle:  fold in half lengthwise with right sides together, pin, sew down one side and curve around one end, leaving the other end open.  Serge or zig zag the edges if desired.  Repeat with the other ear.
2. Turn both ears right side out.
3. Attach ears to the top of the head.  I placed them along one of my seam lines.  Turn the raw edges under slightly and attach to the head using a ladder stitch, exactly as you did in step 4.

Step 6: embroider the face

I didn't take step by step of the process, but I used a backstitch for the eyes, whiskers and mouth, and a satin stitch for the nose.  The Stitch A Day section on the Hand Embroidery Network blog is a great resource for learning how to do just about every embroidery stitch there is.

That is it for the straight handled rattle!  Pretty easy, right? 

Loop Handle Rattle (version 2)

 Step 1:  Cut your sock, following the photo below

Step 2:  make the handle loop

1. Fold piece A in half vertically with right sides together.  Pin and sew down the long side.  Leave both ends open.  Serge or zig zag the edge if desired.
2. Turn the tube right side out and stuff.
3. Create a loop by bringing the two open ends together.  With a long piece of embroidery floss, stitch together in the middle where the raw edges meet.  Do not cut the thread, as you will continue using it on the next piece.

Step 3:  complete the handle

1. Attach piece D by stretching to fit around the entire loop opening.  
2. Turn the raw edges of piece D under and attach to loop (overlapping the loop's raw edges) using a ladder stitch.
3. Top off the handle with additional stuffing.

Step 4:  make the head

1. Stuff piece B.
2. Insert the jingle bell into the center of the stuffing.
3. Using a long piece of embroidery floss, cinch and stitch the bottom of the head closed (see step 3 in the straight handle version for more details).  Do not cut your thread ... you will continue to use it in the next step.

Step 5:  attach the head

Continuing to use the embroidery floss from step 4, attach the bottom (cinched) side of the head to the opening of the handle using a ladder stitch.

Step 6:  make and attach ears
Same as in the straight handle version!   See photos and directions above.

Step 7:  embroider the face
Same as in the straight handle version!

And there you have it ... two different sock bunny rattles.  You know you want one.

Tutorial to be used for Personal Use Only. Thank you!

baby craft quickies

I had a funny conversation with my sweet husband recently.  He came home to see this onesie on the kitchen table:

To which he said, "Really, Jill?  A ruffle?  It's already a onesie."  (Meaning, onesies are inherently cute as they are, so why do they need embellishing?)

To which I  laughed and said (a little sheepishly), "turn it over."

weeee!

(he was appalled). 

I really don't see the problem.  :)  In fact, when we found out we were having a girl, one of the first things I said was, "now I can put ruffles on everything!"  If you love ruffles on babies, try out the ruffle butt onesie  tutorial found on UCreate.  To make the project even quicker, I used jersey fabric so I could leave the edges of the ruffles raw (no hemming or serging required).

Another item recently crossed off my to-do list is dying onesies. It was a lot easier than I thought (I used the stovetop method for RIT powder dye) and I now have a little stash of pink onesies (and a very pink wooden spoon).  Jared thinks it would be easier to just buy them pink.  True, but where is the fun in that?  :)

The pink was cute, but it needed something more.  That's where the petals came in.  It's like J-Crew for infants:

Petal collar shirts are everywhere these days, but here's a tutorial to check out on heylucy.   I used the same heart-shaped petals, but went the lazy route and just machine stitched them to the onesie, sans gathers.

Want another quick baby craft?  I've posted about these before, but baby legwarmers are having a little comeback at our house.  I made three pairs last night!  They only take 10 minutes a pair.

You can find a tutorial on Flickr by Baby Hopes.   My favorite place to buy socks for craft projects is the Gap, because they come in the cutest prints and colors and are a nice, thick sock.  I just wait until they go on sale and stock up - these were only $1.99 each.

Babylegs are really cute with petal onesies:

Pants are overrated.

As you can see, I've been having a lot of fun with the 30 minutes or less baby projects this week.  But there has been something else that has been keeping me busy.  It is really cute.  And new and different (I hope ... I've been wrong before).  Oscar LOVES it, but it's not for him.  And it comes with a tutorial ... next week!

  

What to do with your millions

There's another "I just got a bunch of money, what do I do now?" type post on Hacker News today, and much of the advice is from people who clearly don't know, though the current top comment is actually very good. Since this is a relatively common issue (ha ha) in the startup world, I think it's worth sharing a little of what I've learned from observing others who have this "problem" (yeah, cry me a river, right?). This is somewhat dangerous since money is a very delicate topic for many people, so if you have any strong feelings, please skip this post.

Although today's poster only asked, "What do I do with my money?", there's a second, related question that's also very important, "What do I do with my life?" In both cases, I think the right answer is, "start slow, and avoid making any big decisions now", though as always, there are exceptions.

The money question is the easier of the two to answer: First, don't lose the money!

Many people will naively tell you to immediately hire a financial advisor. What those people don't understand is that the only skill a financial advisor needs in order to be successful is the ability to sell you things. Their actual financial skills are almost irrelevant. Unfortunately, this means that you will need to learn something about money management, and that will take time. Fortunately, you have plenty of time. Read what Warren Buffett has to say about financial helpers. Spend a few years getting recommendations and talking to various advisors before deciding (intermittently, not full-time, of course). Avoid hiring this guy. Meanwhile, put your money in a very safe fixed-income investment, such as short-term CDs. You can circumvent the FDIC insurance limit by having the money spread accross multiple banks (think of it as "RAID for money") -- see CDARS for more info. Don't rush to invest it in the stock market -- that's risky and you could easily lose half of your money in a matter of months. Avoid long-term or illiquid investments, though it's fine to put a few percent into random things such as startups, but understand that you'll probably lose that money, so consider it an educational expense.

Edit: Many people have incorrectly interpreted my advice as, "don't hire a financial advisor". My actual advice is, "don't rush to hire a financial advisor -- just keep things very simple and take time to decide what is right for you." I personally have a bunch of advisors.

Longer term, you'll probably want to diversify into other types of investments. Unfortunately, there's no simple formula for how to do this, and the right answer will depend on your own financial particulars, emotional composition (how does losing money make you feel?), etc. Again though, the most important thing to understand is that you don't need to decide this now. If anyone pressures you to do anything right now (especially financial advisors), tell them that you are not presently interested in their services, only be less polite about it :)

Now for the hard question: What to do with your life?

First, it's important to understand that once you have the basics, happiness comes primarily from healthy social connections and a sense of purpose. If you quit your job and move to a new city where you don't know anyone or have a clear purpose, there's a good chance that you'll end up depressed or even suicidal. So unless your current life is very broken, don't do that. Take it slow.

Many people with jobs have a fantasy about all the amazing things they would do if they didn't need to work. In reality, if they had the drive and commitment to do actually do those things, they wouldn't let a job get in the way. Unfortunately, if given a lot of money, they are much more likely to end up addicted to crack, or even worse, World of Warcraft. (edit, since people are getting offended: there are, as always, exceptions, but the point is that actually doing stuff is about a million times harder than just dreaming about it, which is why 99% of people wouldn't actually do it even if money weren't an issue) If you've been institutionalized your entire life (school, work, etc), it can be very difficult to adjust to life on "the outside".

Again, don't make any drastic changes unless you really need to. Spend time building up new activities, interests, and social connections, especially ones that will give your life a sense of purpose.

Money can also mess with your identity in bad ways. It's important to remember that we're all made of the same shit -- some people are just a little luckier than others. The nice thing about money is that it gives you more freedom, but it can also be a prison if it takes over your identity, makes you fearful, or causes you to cut off connections with the people around you. True freedom comes from the inside anyway -- we're all still slaves to the larger system. (while searching for a story to illustrate this point, I ended up on Epictetus's Wikipedia page -- he seems to have had it about right, so I'll go with that, though The Matrix is also entertaining)

Sometimes, good fortune can also make people feel guilty. But if you find yourself in this situation, you were probably already very lucky (reasonably healthy, intelligent, well educated, etc) -- there's no reason to feel bad about getting slightly more lucky. Your luck is a gift. It's ungrateful to not make the most out of it (and also help others become a little more lucky).

Explore the opportunity. Do something remarkable. Go for a walk in the park. Appreciate the trees.

Handmade Beginnings winner

We have a winner!  The copy of Handmade Beginnings: 24 Sewing Projects to Welcome Baby, by Anna Maria Horner, goes to Marie,  who said:  "I love how your jacket turned out! Very classic, but so cute at the same time! I've been eyeing that book as well, but I'm not expecting, nor are we having any more children. But it kinda makes me want just ONE more baby!"

Congratulations, Marie!  Please email your address to homemadebyjill@gmail.com to claim your copy of the book.

If you are bummed you didn't win, there are still a few stops on the blog tour schedule.  Sew Liberated is on the list for today, and not only is she displaying her awesome version of the Mariposa Tunic project, she is giving away four copies of the book this week!

I made the Cute-as-a-Button Booties this weekend (actually very early this morning after the LOST finale. I'm a nutcase), and love how they turned out.  This bootie pattern is definitely designed well to stay on baby's foot ... and the easy on and off is a plus, too.  Another great project from the book checked off my list!

Book Review and Giveaway: Handmade Beginnings by Anna Maria Horner

I was so happy to receive a review copy of Anna Maria Horner's new book, Handmade Beginnings:  24 Sewing Projects to Welcome Baby.  It couldn't have arrived in a more timely manner!  As my regular readers know, I am expecting baby #2 in just seven short weeks, and while I certainly don't need any help adding to my ever-growing project list, this book is nothing short of inspiring.

First of all, Anna Maria Horner must be some sort of motherhood goddess, because she wrote this book while she was pregnant with her sixth child (my hero).   In the introduction, Anna talks about how all the sewing (her form of nurturing), was so beneficial to her pregnancy.  I especially liked when she said:

" ... sewing while expecting has kept me healthy and centered on what matters - more joyful than not."

I find that true for myself as well.  All of the projects I've been working on for Ruby keep my mind on the excitement of a new baby, and away from worrying about all the potential "what ifs."  Plus, I like the late night sewing sessions, just the two of us, when I can feel all of her little wiggles (and sometimes backflips).

Anyway, back to the book!  It really is a wonderful collection of projects that includes the whole family in getting ready for baby - there are sewing projects for mama, baby, dad, siblings, the home ... she just about covers it all.  Can you tell I like this book?  The projects are clever, the instructions are clear, and the photography is to-die for.

The first project to catch my eye was the Baby-in-the-Hood Jacket:

Isn't that baby just delicious?!!  The jacket is gorgeous, too ... I had to make one.   Here is my first attempt:

This was one of the more complicated baby projects, but the instructions were so clearly written, it was easy to follow.  I picked fabric that was neutral but still playful and really like how the jacket turned out.  When I compare it to the jacket in the book's photos though, I can't help but think I need to make a second jacket in bold, vibrant colors.  Yes, a second jacket is definitely on the to-do list.  A girl needs options!

I have fabric cut for about 4 other projects from the book, but another one I wanted to specifically mention is the Nesting Cubes:

So cute!  You can try it out as well, because this project is available as a free pattern download here. 

In addition, Wiley Publishing is running a drawing for 1 SINGER® Confidence™ 7470 sewing machine, 5 yards of Anna Maria Horner fabric, and a copy of the book Handmade Beginnings: 24 Sewing Projects to Welcome Baby.  Just click here to enter.


Finally, you can read more about the book (and find more book giveaways) on Anna Maria's blog tour. Here's the schedule:

May 3      Craft

May 4      Indie Fixx

May 5      Sew Mama Sew

May 6      Pink Chalk Studio

May 10    Wise Craft

May 14    House on Hill Road

May 16    The Purl Bee

May 18    All Buttoned Up

May 19    Alabama Chanin Journal

May 20    Homemade by Jill

May 21    True Up

May 22    Oh, Fransson!

May 23    Prudent Baby

May 24    Sew Liberated

May 25    Handmade by Alissa

May 26    Hazelnuts

May 27    Petite Purls


This giveaway is now CLOSED.  Thanks for entering!

the post where I distract you with a cute picture of Oscar

Hi friends.  I'm sorry to report that this has been a slow week of sewing/crafting.  In the battle between wanting to make something and wanting to take a nap, napping has won out almost everyday.

But look!  Oscar is still so cute!  Remember when I made him?  He's still the best thing I've ever done.

Don't worry, I still have a mile-long project list to tackle before baby comes (only 8 weeks to go!), and I have something special coming up next week.

Have a lovely weekend, and if you get a chance, enjoy a nap.  :)

cutie booties - pattern by Amy Butler

Here's another project from Amy Butler's book, Little Stitches for Little Ones.  I've loved every pattern I've tried in this book!

I like these booties because there is no elastic, yet the way they wrap seems like it will still be a secure fit on baby's foot.  Also, all of the inside seams are finished off, so they look just as pretty on the inside as they do on the outside.  It requires a bit of hand-sewing, but it looks lovely and I think will be more comfortable.

While you have to buy the book to see the baby patterns, Amy Butler does have some free pattern downloads on her website here (mostly for pretty quilts, but there is other fun stuff there as well).

Like the fabric on these booties?  It is all from the Riley Blake Wheels collection.  I received a big box of fat quarters last week from the designer herself - needless to say, I am in heaven.

go-to baby shower gifts

Forgive me for the light posting this week - I've been sewing like crazy for a quadrouple(!) baby shower tomorrow night.  I'm one of the lucky four expecting mamas, but I wanted to do something special for the other three ladies.  I don't think any of them read my blog, so hopefully this will be safe to post.  :)  All three of them are expecting boys, so I had a chance to use some of my favorite Riley Blake Wheels fabric.

 Here's a list of my go-to gifts for baby showers, depending on what I feel like making:

• Burp cloths
• An appliqued onesie - like in the onesie pictured above, sometimes I add a little embroidery as well.  I embroider the fabric first, then adhere it to the onesie using Wonder-Under, and finish it off with a satin stitch on the sewing machine.
• Embellished infant tee
• Baby booties - I typically use the Stardust Shoes pattern, but I'm experimenting with a few others (to be posted soon)
• A changing pad and wipes clutch
• Baby bibs
• Tag blankets with taggie toys

Sometimes I like to include something else special, not made by me.  Did you notice the adorable wood teething ring in the photo?  It is made by one of my favorite etsy sellers, Little Sapling Toys.  I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just love the products.  I bought a few things from them for Oscar's first Christmas, and they were favorite early baby toys.

strawberry freezer jam

The baby was demanding homemade strawberry jam, so instead of sewing this weekend I made a little army of freezer jam.  My poor little freezer is not equipped to hold twelve jars of jam in addition to our usual frozen goods, so a few of these pretties are going to find a new home.

Have you ever made jam?  I've only done the easy freezer jam, but one of these days I am going to get brave and make cooked jam.

You know what is really good?  Strawberry freezer jam and nutella, spread liberally on yummy bread.  It almost tastes like a chocolate covered strawberry sandwich!  It is becoming my favorite treat and within about 10 minutes of eating one, Ruby is doing backflips in the womb, so I think she likes it, too.  :)